Does STRANGER THINGS’ “Upside Down” Actually Exist?

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I’m going to sound like everyone you know with a Netflix account, but you have to watch Stranger Things, like, yesterday. Not only is it well written, acted, and gilded by a perfect soundtrack, it’s scary, funny, and unyieldingly engaging. Some of the sci-fi elements in the show are so weird, in fact, that I spent days trying to wrap my brain around them. Could the “Upside Down” that 11 mentions really exist? Does it already?

In my latest Because Science, I’m taking a closer look at what the show suggests the Upside Down might be. Both parallel universes and extra dimensions are implied by characters and partially explained, but those are two very different ideas and maybe not the right ones. For the “real” explanation, I want to challenge you with a theory about the fabric of reality that you probably haven’t heard before, one so fundamentally weird that it just might explain why the Upside Down could be out there already, somewhere.

I’d like to dedicate this episode to a science teacher who changed my life, Joseph Duginski. I never got the chance to tell him, but I hope that he’d be proud of me. If you have a great teacher in life, tell them.